Cetus
by Sfaari
Summary: Red is Ahab, and he finally found his whale.


Red laughed. A hearty, throaty, bemused laugh laced with despair. He shook his head. He had a fondness in his eyes and a sardonic smile on his face as his laughter faded.

"Unpredictable." he breathed as he looked at her, his face settling into stone as the weight of reality crushed his shoulders.

She stood across from him in his current abode, leaned against the door frame to the kitchen, her arms crossed, light from the fireplace softening her. Elizabeth Keen. His path to redemption. His path to answers. But she was oh so much more. She became more to him than he ever could have predicted and had always been more than he ever saw. Oh, the irony of it all. She let out a long, defeated sigh as the silence stretched between them and he could tell that she hadn't expected nor wanted it all to end like this.

Not at all.

Red wanted to believe that she was in the same boat as he, but he squashed the sentiment down. In spite of his deepest desires when it came to her, he was face to face with an enemy, and thus must act accordingly. His mouth pouted a bit, "No monologue?" he asked blithely.

She only looked at him, her expression closed. He nodded his head, "Shame." he said as he reached towards the end table for the bottle of scotch. He ignored the glass he had been previously drinking from and quickly uncorked the bottle.

"I'd offer you some, but I know better." he winked at her and took a drink.

Liz pursed her lips and he could see the anger and hurt flare. He was careful not to let the stubborn hope in his chest to spring.

His eyebrows quirked upwards as he swallowed, "Not what you were expecting I imagine. Sorry to disappoint." he wryly chuckled. "Still, wouldn't mind that monologue. I... **so** want to know... how did you do it? Surely you can... humor me?"

Immediately he saw the fire within her disperse like vapor, as if it had never been. She remained silent for a beat, her eyes glittering with emotions he forced himself not to analyze. "I divided the organization into separate cells. Each cell had no knowledge of the other, so if one was compromised, the others would be secure. Only I knew how many cells there were and the members." she paused.

"Tom was part of a cell." Red said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"And the surveillance team."

"Yes."

He nodded his head before he looked away, to the fireplace, "And my daughter?"

Liz sucked in air quietly, "Was not implemented by me."

"Your father."

"Yes."

"But you kept her."

Liz didn't answer.

"Added to the program to... train... her."

She remained silent.

Red nodded again, his eyes distant with an odd shine misting them. Liz breathed as she watched the way the light played on his face. It gave light to what he never wanted to show, illuminating the deep anguish in one moment and the humiliated pride in another. The look of loss constant.

He shocked her when he laughed, a genuine laugh of mirth, finally turning his eyes back to her.

"Have I ever told you you're brilliant?" he asked, his eyes taking her in, tinged with a depth of sadness that he thought he could see reflected in hers.

She looked away, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Almost every day."

The silence stretched before them, thick and heavy as the snowfall from a blizzard. His gaze trained on her form, hers trained on the fire, both breathing slowly and heavily.

"I suppose you want to know why." she quietly began, her gaze shifting from the fire to a space beyond his face.

"I already know why." his voice rumbled. She snapped her eyes back to him and shivered under the intensity of his scrutiny.

"What I don't know is why you decided to tell me now." he frowned.

"It's... complicated." she murmured.

"I can keep up."

Liz fidgeted under his piercing gaze. "I hated you **so** much. You took _everything_ away from me. All that I loved. I wanted you to feel as I did. I hadn't expected... never thought... it wasn't possible... but then..." her voice cracked to a stop, her eyes focusing somewhere distant in her memory.

"Then what?" Red asked, carefully drawing her back to the present.

"Things grew... complicated." she finished lamely before her eyes connected with his, and he saw what she couldn't say. The gravity and the meaning of her words settled on him like the all encompassing embrace of Death. It was like the wind was knocked from him and he was submerged beneath the waves of the Pacific.

Liz heaved a breathless sigh, tears falling down her face. "I'm sorry." Liz whispered, and he could tell she meant it. The wall he had been haphazardly building since she came in went tumbling down like a sandcastle during the fury of a hurricane. For a moment he had felt numb. Then all that he had felt for her before she revealed that she was his adversary and all that he had been feeling since collided into each other. They warred and tangled and merged until he couldn't tell where one began and the other ended. It was confusing and liberating and wonderful and dreadful. It was everything good and bad and in between.

He couldn't help but love her all the more for it, and that hurt, almost more than he could bear.

Air rushed back into his lungs as a painful smile alighted his face, "Don't be." he whispered back, blinking back the excess of moisture.

And he meant it.

Liz must have sensed the shift in him, because she slowly began walking over to him, her eyes glued to his. She stopped before him, their knees brushing, hesitating for a moment before leaning down. Her hair fell forward, curtaining his face from the flames and bringing the scent of her in waves. He closed his eyes and inhaled as the heat of her face began to warm his. He smiled that small sad smile of his. "I take it I'm already dead." his deep voice rumbled like distant thunder as he opened his eyes and moved his face to mirror hers, his eyes drinking her in.

She answered with her own enigmatic smile, a hand reaching up and caressing his face. He leaned into her touch.

"We both are."

...

AN: Eh, I haven't written anything in years, so I hope this is tolerable. I'm not a grammar God, I don't hold any delusions of being one, nor do I have a beta, so the mistakes you see (I'm sure there are plenty) are all mine. I own nothing except for a deep love and respect for NBC's The Blacklist.


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